In modern commercial aircraft there are various components that have certain cooling requirements. For example, environmental control systems require the supply or production of a cool medium in order to provide the best possible thermal comfort for passengers on board the aircraft, whereas, for example, a host of electronic devices and installations generate waste heat that has to be conveyed out of the aircraft. As a result of the increasing integration of electrical devices in aircraft increasingly cooling systems are installed that use liquid refrigerants for heat transfer. Such cooling systems are suitable for discharging relatively large quantities of air that can practically not be accumulated in an aircraft. Furthermore, in particular due to the very considerable demand for electrical power it would also be disadvantageous to eliminate such large quantities of heat by active cooling using refrigerating machines.
In industry, for example in the automotive sector in plant engineering and construction, and in the electronics industry, there exists a large variety of technical solutions and designs of heat transfer devices for cooling devices and other installations. The use of heat exchangers in aircraft is known, which heat exchangers convey their heat to the surroundings of the aircraft by way of the outer skin. This is described, for example, in EP 06 55 593 A1; however, the heat transfer device described therein is used in an active cooling system for foodstuffs, in which cooling system for the purpose of supporting other heat sinks additionally outer-skin heat exchangers can also be used. Due to the different operating conditions of a commercial aircraft, for example reflected in greatly varying ambient temperatures, the outer-skin heat exchanger disclosed is only suitable for additionally supporting a conventional active cooling system at very considerable temperature differentials when compared to the ambient air.